Hardliners Boo Gorbachev's Perestroika

I'm reading Gorbachev His Life and Times.  I think things are about to get very sad.  On page 359 we get the account of the Nineteenth Party Conference.  

Click to enlarge.

Mostly party hardliners devoted to the old ways had come into office through the new, more democratic elections.

Saturn is lining up with Uranus at the end of Sagittarius, which is the Scorpio section of the philosophical sign.  Gorbachev was such an idealist.  Oh how he loved his country but loved the western democracies too.  

Saturn and Uranus are circled.  They look like they're in Capricorn, but they're at the end of Sagittarius.

The two slow planets are going retrograde.  In the pages leading up to this account of the big conference we get a good blow by blow of the Andreyevo Manifesto.  Remnick Interviews Andreyeva.  Here's another  account Quillett account of Andreyeva Manifesto.

I can't wait to look at the ephemeris for 1988 and a chart for March 13 when the lengthy denunciation of Gorbachev's initiatives was first published.  

Virgin Head Slap

I just had a head slap moment, calling for an oganic time stamp.  It started out with a video interview of Dr Gad Barnea about an ancient Jewish temple on the island of Elephantine in Egypt.  He mentioned the temple of Khnum just a meter away from the old Jewish temple.  Ok.  Geez.  How many of these fascinating side alleys would have been dead ends for me back in the 80's!

So as I'm searching for info about Khnum, next thing I know someone is talking about Neith, warrior goddess wife of potter/creator God Khnum.  (He fashioned babies from clay of Nile and put them in wombs of pregnant women?)  And bam.  They mention that Neith, this warrior goddess, is a virgin.

And the obvious finally became obvious to this little Catholic girl, wondering all these 60 odd years, what is this obsession with Mary being a virgin?  Of course the goddesses of old religions would have been virgins!  As first generation goddesses they were immortal, self created entities.  

It finally came to me that Mary's virginity was less about morality than about her association with early creation stories. 

The chart below is my organic time stamp of wakey, wakey moment.

I circled Jupiter in Cancer.  You can see it just under the horizon on the right side of chart.  Note the tiny little number 6 on inner part of that pie slice.  That means Jupiter is passing through the 6th house also known as the house of study.

As Raleigh, NC was facing the last 3rd of Scorpio, Jupiter was sinking under the western horizon.  That area of the recently visible, but now INvisible sky is the 6th house of study, also associated with the virgin.  The word virgin originally referred more to female youth, as in the period of life before child bearing age.

This year Jupiter is exalted as it passes through Cancer, the sign of nurturing.  The trust and faith associated with Jupiter are exalted in the cultic wombs of families and church groups.  I'm enjoying learning about various old cults as the disappeared foundations of current cults. 

Here is link to interview about Jewish temple destroyed around 410 bce.  

Interiew about Jewish temple in Elephantine Egypt

Ahriman the Enslaved Lion

It's a freezing Tues morn, the sun is almost up, I can see the green blades of hardy flowers-to-come poking through the brown leaves in my front yard.  The neighbor cat was here earlier, when the green blades were still dark shadows without color, checking the water dishes, and seemed to get something out of the one I filled yesterday.  Maybe that bowl did not completely freeze over last night.  

The term 'flowers-to-come' reminds me of the name 'Lucifer' applied in olden times to the morning light of Venus.  Right now Venus is an evening star, shining brightly from very high in the western sky for more than an hour after sunset.  It's funny to think of Venus as the dawn star coming to be associated with evil, but then again maybe it shouldn't seem so unlikely after all.  

Those green blades as promises of flowers to come are kind of like Lucifer reflecting, to us earth bound creatures, the Sun's light from under the horizon.  Smarty pants wandering star that he/she is.  Shining like a wanna be Sun and changing roles from one part of their cycle to the next.  Who was it that decided he/she needed to be punished, thrown down and imprisoned in a lower place?

Venus near Saturn under  Raleigh's eastern horizon

Well, regardless of what the stories relate, or how people interpret them, Venus is alive and well and very near her meeting with Saturn.  They are circled in blue in the chart above.  Notice that they are within Pisces ♓, indicated by the blue symbol in the nearby section of the outer wheel.

I wanted to go back to bed after watching the Sun rise, but I'm working on this essay instead.  I left the house of a customer yesterday who complained of how much extra effort it takes to complete tasks while pushing a walker around where ever she goes.  I told her about another customer in a wheel chair and yet another who is blind.  Usually a more supportive remark of sympathy comes to me; that response during our end of the day conversation felt a bit off.  I kept thinking about how she might feel like a whiner compared to others with similar or worse 'crosses' to bear.  

Crosses of existence like the kind people talked about in the old days before the Roman Empire.  Literal physical limitations beyond the normal limitations of lifespan or the oppression of gravity.  Limitations beyond the inability to see the Sun while it is shining on the other side of our planet, beyond being bound to physically exist in only the present.

The above and beyond kind of limitations like not being able to walk, or see, after years of being a productive citizen.  Finding it impossible to breathe without a chemical cloud to soothe your lungs from seizing up and filling the space left by your contracted diaphragm.  Imagine never smoking anything in your life and being diagnosed with copd!

A few months ago I watched my blind customer fall and take a nasty gash on her forhead from the corner of a table.  I was too slow to intervene and her son had to leave work to take her to the e room for stitches.  I'm learning from her to be alert instead of tied up in knots determined to prevent any disasters.

I learn something different from every customer.  The common thread among all of the lessons is compassion.  That's associated with Picses, the last step in the solar cycle of bio generation.  Venus doesn't rule in Pisces but does receive praise in that segment of life's unfolding.  Venus is exalted in Pisces.  

Saturn of course is not (praised in Pisces).  But the planet of limits is praised in the sign of the harvest (Libra),when there is plenty to go around and forethought ensures saving for the future along with fair distribution.  

Venus is lining up with very sobering, slow proceeding Saturn in the sign of compassion and hope for a brighter future.  I'm thinking of all the people in my life struggling with very discouraging physical problems.  I'm very grateful for modern medicine, with all its imperfections, just like me with all of mine; the medical institution is striving to aid us in the fight to survive.  

Lion headed figure from the Sidon Mithraeum.  500CE.  An ivory colored statue of a naked human male with lion head and folded wings.  A snake is wrapped around the legs and torso. The serpent's head is at the neck just below the opened mouth of the lion's head.

I learned about the lion headed figure this week.  Some sources associate these images with Ahriman, a Persian name derived from Avestan Angra Mainyu.  Like our Latin Lucifer I suspect this icon refers to not so much to an evil being as a powerful creature trapped in the serpentine cycles of the solar system.  There are many variations of this icon found in the Mithraeums popular among the Roman soldiers.  From the account of Tiridates being lavishly celebrated by Nero I get the impression the Romans were smitten with serious admiration for some of the eastern cultures they encountered in their conquests.

Example of Lion Headed statues found in Mithraeums 

This one includes zodiac symbols on its body.  I like the way this image illustrates the way we can feel as powerful as lions and yet at the same time hopelessly entwined in the creeping process of evolution.  I guess the whole point was to remember the ultimate process above and beyond our limited lifespan.  

 

Much Needed Laughter

 Gotta record this.  Reading 'Son of Hamas' on my day off.  Interspersed with devastating testimonies from Breaking the Silence - mostly IDF soldiers telling about how they witnessed abuse or themselves abused Palestinians.  It appears from their financial transparency pdf and this link that they receive a good bit of funding from Open Societies Foundation of George Soros.  That's some serious support of free speech aimed at uncovering sobering truth.

I'm taking a break, by the way, from 'Sequel' by Rachel Maddow.  

Compared to the Maddow book, 'Son of Hamas' by Mosab Hassan Yousef and Ron Brackin, is much more fast paced and emotional.  It is Yousef's autobiography of Palestinian childhood, imprisonment in Israel, and now I'm in the period where he is 'working' for Shin Bet which basically means he's getting paid to go to college and meet secretly with his Israeli handler.  

Mars just met Saturn yesterday.  You can see the pair setting on right side of chart.

Quick cut to astro stuff.  This my blog so we gotta gaze upward for a moment.

Jupiter is closing in on its meetup with Uranus.  That's happening in the last 3rd of Taurus and it's a pretty big deal since these two outer planets last met in 2010/11.  But the arresting pair that's got my attention right now is Mars and Saturn.  I'm seriously digging into war, statehood and all sorts of national conflict.

This biography of the oldest son of one of the founders of Hamas is taking me to the depths of the Israeli Palestinian war.  He mentions historic moments like the Camp David Summit, but from a perspective I've not yet encountered.  He throws very few dates around, but plenty of gut wrenching stories of torture and abuse on both sides.

His dad is a flawed sweetheart, a true hero trapped in a very bad place.  Yousef is a very confused young man wondering who he can trust, feeling very lost, but guided by his father's abiding kindness.  I repeat, the kindness of Yousef's father is flawed; no matter how strongly Venus shines, Mars is always still present in heaven.

I've just come to the part where Arafat has succeeded in igniting riots after Sharon's uneventful visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque.  By the way, I did not know Sharon's visit was a staged message to voters that he would not tolerate the Palestinains bulldozing archeological sites of Jewish Temples; there apparently had been video footage in the news, during the preceding weeks, of archeologists shaking their heads in disbelief at the bulldozers hauling away mounds filled with who knows how many ancient artifacts to a land fill.¹

Yousef had driven his father to the mosque.  Arafat had called him the night before requesting his help as a Hamas leader in bringing the Palestinians out to protest.  When they couldn't get a crowd up at the mosque his father dutifully went to Ramallah to help bring people out into the streets.  Yousef expressed outrage at his father for doing Arafat's bidding and then drove off to go camping near Galilee with his friends.  

He had no idea about the riots unfolding until he got a call from his Shin Bet handler.

"Where are you?"

"I'm in Galilee camping with some friends."

"Galilee!  What?"  Loai started to laugh.  "You are really unbelievable," he said.  "The whole West Bank is upside down and you're out having fun with your Christian friends."

*     ♡     *     ♡     *     ♡     *    

I've watched a few videos with this guy, Mosab Hassan Yousef.  He exudes intense, brooding anger and self confidence.  He speaks against people adopting false identities. 

I'm mostly thinking about the corrosive influence of war, of Mars, of the ugly reality of the constant battle for survival that we all face every day.  But some survive incredibly brutal fights and come out ready to tell the rest of us what they have learned.

The moment I got that relief of laughter, when Yousef's Shin Bet handler was laughing at the absurdity right beside this very explosive, deadly sobering situation -at that moment the deadly sobering pair of Mars and Saturn were setting in the Leo duad of Pisces.

^{1.  From Son of Hamas Yousef and Brackin Page 130 "Sharon's visit was designed to send a silent but clear message to Israeli voters: "I'll put a stop to this unnecessary destruction."  In planning the trip, Sharon's people had received assurance from Palestinian security chief Jibril Rajoub that his visit would not be a problem as long as he did not set foot in a mosque.}

^{"He came, he looked around, and he left.  He said nothing. He never entered the mosque.  It all seemed like a big nonevent to me. On the way back to Ramallah, I asked my father what the big deal had been.}

^{"What happened?" I said,  "You didn't start an intifada."}

^{"Not yet," he answered.  "But I have called some activists in the Islamic student movement and asked them to meet me here for a protest."}

^{"Nothing happened in Jerusalem, so now you want to demonstrate in Ramallah?  That's crazy," I told him.}

^{"We have to do what we have to do.  Al-Aqsa is our mosque and Sharon had no business being there."}

^{I wondered if he was trying to convince me or himself."}

Egyptian King Farouk Invades Israel 1948

I'm seeing a lot of stuff on the net about Israel/Palestine.  I'm not going into my personal feelings here, just adding some pertinent info that seems to be falling through the cracks.  The chart is for the morning several Arab countries invaded newly declared Israel.  Pluto and Saturn in their historic meeting were rising as the invasion unfolded, with the new Moon right between them.  All three planets were in the Leo section of the ecliptic.  A collection of 'Arab kings' were determined to expel a newly formed state of 'western colonizers' and rushing to beat each other in a grab for power.

A quote from Wikipedia article on King Farouk:  In May 1948, the prime minister Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha advised against going to war with Israel, saying the Egyptian Army was not ready for war.^[182] However, King Farouk overruled him, as he feared the growing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was clamoring for war with Israel.^[182]

The Wikipedia article on Farouk is long but packed with enough salacious details to satisfy any fan of lush life exposés. 

This is from the Wikipedia article on Azzam Pasha:  Azzam believed that King Abdullah of Jordan had decided to move his forces into Palestine on 15 May, regardless of what the other Arabs did, and would occupy the Arab part of Palestine (blaming other Arab states for failure). King Farouk resolved to contain Abdullah and prevent him from gaining further influence and power in the Arab arena.^[30]

I'm deeply disturbed by current events.  But that's ok.  It motivates me to learn as much as I can about the situation. 

I've watched several videos of Israeli Oct 7 survivors.  I've also watched some videos about and by Edward Said.  I like Said, but feel compelled to raise my hand and say, "Yes, you have an important account to give the world about the suffering of your childhood community of Palestinians, but what about the Arab invasion?"

One last quote:  At the last moment, several Arab leaders, to avert catastrophe – secretly appealed to the British to hold on in Palestine for at least another year.^[147][148]

The Kindness of Venus in Scorpio

I am often asked why the time of birth from a birth certificate is important.  An astrological example from a memorable moment of life is a good way to illustrate the power of knowing the exact time and place of first breath.  Today's post is such an example in my chart.

Venus passed over the location of my natal Moon yesterday, Dec 19.  It was late, actually I should have said the transit was last night.  I was going to the car to do a couple of night errands; I needed to pick up a winter jacket I had left at my customer's house Monday, the day before, and then head to the Food Lion (the one on Avent Ferry that stays open till midnight) for onions and greens etc.  

Venus is in 3rd house (bottom left quadrant of circle) at 18°♏15'

As I was walking to the car I called for Brownie - she'd been missing since Monday when I left for work at lunch time.  She was not out front in the morn, when I got up, waiting patiently in the sun, facing the front door so she could see me when I looked out the little window.  There was still no sign of her when I left for work just before 1pm.  I wasn't worried, just figured that was lucky because I was running a bit late and feeling very sluggish.  If she had been out front I would have been pressed to return to the house to put crunchies in her dish and fresh water in her bowl.  She does occasionally skip a meal.  Saturday night I was up till 4am cleaning windows to beat the coming storm.  And she was in and out the whole time.  Then Sunday while it rained all day she spent a lot of time inside and on my lap.  It seemed natural that she would want to enjoy the clear skies after so much time in the house.  She likes to lick water from the various buckets I use to catch the rain.  There was a wide assortment of freshly filled buckets to taste from.  So even though I didn't see her around I figured she'd be waiting for dinner when I got home from work.

It was after dark, 7:15 and pretty chilly.  I missed her meeting me at the car, meowing loudly as she approached the driver's side door.  Lately, she is at the foot of the driveway and wanders from one side to the other a couple of times; I stop, back up a bit and talk to her from behind the windshield, asking her to get out of the way.  Ugh, wondering if I will have to put the car in park, turn off the engine and get out to move her, but no, she always crosses to the roots of the giant oak tree eventually.  I pull in the driveway, park the car, and our evening conversion begins as soon as I exit with my bag of cleaning gloves, and 'cleaning uniform', an old pair of shorts and a t-shirt covered with bleach marks.  We talk all the way to the mailbox and into the house.  Unless it's really cold she stops at the door and waits for me to come back out with food.

On the bottom left of the chart you can see Venus; most non astrologers will recognize it as the female symbol, but don't be fooled, Venus is about much more than traditional notions of sex and gender.  That pie slice is the 3rd house counting counter clockwise from the AC (ascendent).  When we say Venus is in the 3rd house we are saying it is in the 3rd section of the ecliptic lined up to rise above the eastern horizon.  See the Sun (little circle with dot) in the 4th house?  Right now Venus is a morning 'star', it rises before the Sun, so early birds can see it in the wee hours of darkness right before daylight.

At 9:54 Tuesday night, when I found Brownie's corpse on the other side of the street, Raleigh was turning back toward the Scorpio area of the ecliptic where Venus is currently traveling.  The Sun is almost finished going through Capricorn, while Venus is flyng through the second half of Scorpio.  

Plato had Timeaus talk extensively about how our casual notions of up and down are very misleading.  The chart makes it look like Venus will eventually (in about 6.5 hours) cross above the horizontal line, but actually, we in Raleigh are revolving toward Venus and it just looks to us like 'her' beautiful light rises up out of the sea of darkness before daybreak. 

When we go backwards in time, by 12 minutes, we can see Sun in 5th house and Pluto in 6th. 

I do feel the loss, but writing about the detailed order of our sister planets helps enormously to keep me focused on the long haul of life.  A taste of immortality does actually diminish the ache of loss and worry about failure.

So there she had probably lain, her corpse at least, since Monday morning when she did not show up for breakfast.  All those times I had called her, night and day, her body was within hearing distance.  But the breath of life was gone.  Psyche in Greek, ruach in Hebrew.  

I skooped her up in an old towel, placed her on a rug in the mudroom, it was down in the 20's last night so I was not worried about bugs yet, then I went to run my night errands with no more worries about where she was.

That's the kindness of Venus in Scorpio.  

My natal chart showing Moon at 18°♏ 14' in the 2nd house.

My natal Moon is 18° ♏ 14'.  During the 12 minutes that I was making my mind up to pick up the jacket and go to the store, instead of putting it off till morn, Venus was passing over the place where the Moon was the moment I was born.  The Moon travels at least 12° in the Zodiac every 24 hours.  That means it takes about 1 minute of clock time for the Moon to travel half a minute in the Zodiac, which is about 1/120 of a degree.  That's pretty specific.  We're not talking about Venus being in the same sign as my natal Moon - Venus has been in Scorpio since Dec 5.  That's 2 weeks.  We're not even talking about the same degree.  Venus right now takes about 24 hours to pass through a degree.  We're talking about the 12 minutes of clock time Venus took to pass through 1/2 a minute of the Zodiac - the same 1/2 minute of arc my natal Moon passed through in just one clock minute 65 years ago.

Only by having my exact time of birth from my birth certificate could I know that last night, while I was about to find Brownie's body, Venus was moving over the same position as the Moon when I drew my first breath.

Brownie was 21 years old when she died.  Though she ate and lingered around my husband as he used to sit on the front porch, noone could touch her.  Her greatest fear was to be touched by us or enter the house.  That was when she first appeared. She was young, but already full size.  She never sprung or jumped from one place to the other.  After a few years and auspicious but seemingly tragic events: she lost a litter of kittens to a predator and tried to steal another litter from the cat who left her babies in my closet to go out.  I had no screen in my bedroom window, and she snuck in to nurse the babies.  Only then could we touch her.  Gradually over many years she came to love sitting on our lap or having her thick winter coat brushed out in the summer. 

She never iniated play like a kitten.  She would occasionally swat at a crumpled paper at the end of a string.  Sometimes at night I would see her stalking something under the street light.  But there was always something very humble, practical and uncatlike about her.

Scorpio is associated with procreation and death.

The Hour is Nigh

 

A further quote from Philo.  I just love that this is stuff people were reading when Jesus was walking on Earth.

XXV. (77) And some one may inquire the cause why it was that man was the last work in the creation of the world. For the Creator and Father created him after every thing else as the sacred scriptures inform us. Accordingly, they who have gone most deeply into the laws, and who to the best of their power have investigated everything that is contained in them with all diligence, say that God, when he had given to man to partake of kindred with himself, grudged him neither reason, which is the most excellent of all gifts, nor anything else that is good; but before his creation, provided for him every thing in the world, as for the animal most resembling himself, and dearest to him, being desirous that when he was born, he should be in want of nothing requisite for living, and for living well; the first of which objects is provided for by the abundance of supplies which are furnished to him for his enjoyment, and the other by his power of contemplation of the heavenly bodies, by which the mind is smitten so as to conceive a love and desire for knowledge on those subjects; owing to which desire, philosophy has sprung up, by which, man, though mortal, is made immortal.

This Mars conjunction of Sun is getting to me.  A bit of astrology helps distract my mind from all the distressing thoughts generated by distressing events.  They're always out there.  But sometimes they really grab our attention and squeeeeeze!  They wring it like the final spin on a Maytag wash cycle.

Sooo - in case anyone is wondering how I got this time.  It really is not hard to get to.  Just follow these 7 easy FREE steps.  We're entering the deep, dark secrets of the Swiss ephemeris.  Oooh!  This will be an adventure for sure.

First go to the astro.com page.  Go from All about Astrology (at top of page) > Ephemeris > 9000 Years Ephemeris > Planetary Cycles > Mars Cycles 1600-2100. I made the images for these steps small, but you can click on them to get a better look.

Now for the wand waving -- That 5:43 time next to the Nov 18 date is UT which is kind of like GMT.  (London Calling)  If you scroll back up and look in box of info above the chart you'll see Time and then Univ Time right under that.  To get the time for Raleigh, I subtracted 5 hours from the Univ Time.

I got a chart for Nov 18, 2023  Raleigh, NC 00:43 and there you can see (in the bottom left quadrant) Sun right next to Mars at 25Scorpio37.